from Practical Ecommerce by Sarah Worsham

Flickr, a photo sharing site, can be a powerful tool for promoting your products. Not only can you upload images of your products, where they can be seen throughout the Flickr website, but you can encourage your customers to participate and socialize with your company and products by uploading and sharing their own images of your products.

Included in the article:

• The Action Shot
• Social Hour
• Tag, You’re It
• Kick Start
• Rewards
• Who Uses Flickr on Their Site?
• Related Articles

Read the full article

1. Pick a unique topic – it is easier said than done to choose a topic that is unique from everyone else today in a blogosphere as crowded as we’re currently in – however opportunities do arise to start blogs on topics that are new trends, products or ideas. Being first doesn’t guarantee success – but it can help.

2. Develop a Unique Voice – while it may not always be possible to choose a unique topic it can sometimes be easier to cover that topic in a way that others do not. Whether it be by using humor, blogging as a character (think Fake Steve Jobs blog), blogging in the 3rd Person (Manolo the Shoe Blogger) or some other way – finding a unique voice or style can set you apart from the rest.

3. Design – having a unique blog design doesn’t mean you need to pay big dollars for a custom design – start with a default one (or a premium design like Thesis) and tweak it with a unique logo, colors and layout. Visual first impressions count and can be the deciding factor as to whether people subscribe to your blog or not.

Read the full article at ProBlogger >>

Here are some articles that give you all the details and a few thoughts:

• Google Launches SearchWiki for Custom-Ordered Search Results
• Google Gets Jiggy
• Google Intros SearchWiki
• Google Makes Major Interface Change to Search: SearchWiki

FacebookIn my last newsletter we talked about social networking. I explained what it was and I gave you a few examples of where you could find it. So, today I would like to take one step closer to this new found beast and see if it has anything to offer in terms of using it to help your business grow.

Of course not all social networks are created equal. There are many different sites out there with very different opportunities. You must first determine what you want to achieve out of social networking online and then find the site that will give you the biggest benefits. Today we will focus on the ever popular Facebook.

As I mentioned earlier, Facebook is a social networking site that was first designed to give incoming college students, faculty and staff a way of getting to know other people on campus. It was first limited to Harvard students only, but since then Facebook has expanded to include anyone aged 13 and over.

With over 100 million active users worldwide, is there a way Facebook can be used to help your business?

Well, believe it or not Facebook now offers it’s very own business solutions!

Facebook’s business solutions are powerful tools that can help spread your brand and your business to existing and potential customers. Let’s review some of the ways that Facebook’s business solutions can help your business:

Facebook Pages — Facebook Pages were created to give businesses their own profile on Facebook.
Facebook Pages give your business or brand an identity on Facebook much the same as a Facebook profile does for an individual. Users can show their support for your brand or company by adding themselves as a fan, writing on your Wall, uploading photos and joining in discussion groups. When they do any of this, all their friends can see as these actions are automatically generated into News Feeds.

If you have created a Facebook Page you can store photos, videos, information about your company, and add custom applications. All activity on Facebook Pages gets posted back to your Mini Feed for all to see.

Facebook Platform — Facebook has a very powerful API that allows anyone to build any application for use on Facebook, for example the Facebook Photos application. These applications can even serve their own ads. There is a special applications area on Facebook where you can browse or add third party applications. Not only do these applications serve to boost your business but if someone adds your application to their profile, it is noted in their News Feed for all of their friends to see.

Facebook Ads — You can create a Facebook Ad and target it to the audience you choose!
Facebook’s powerful advertising engine enables businesses to specify a specific demographic target, see how many people are in that demographic, and advertise to that demographic. You can buy ads either based on the number of clicks (CPC) or by the number of impressions (CPM). Active ads can even receive performance metrics, including feedback on how to optimize your ad.

Facebook Polls — Facebook Polls allow you to run a targeted survey to the demographic you want. Survey your target audience on their attitudes towards a particular topic or get their feedback on an important business decision. Results are captured in real time so you don’t have to wait!

Facebook Insights — With Facebook Insights you get meaningful statistics on who is engaging with your Facebook Pages and who is clicking on your Facebook Ads. Facebook Insights gives you access to important data such as activity, demographics, ad performance and trends. With such indepth analysis you can optimize your ads and improve your conversions.

Facebook Connect — Just recently released, Facebook Connect is the next evolution of Facebook Platform. Facebook Connect enables your website to easily integrate with Facebook. By integrating Facebook Connect into your won site you enable your users to connect their Facebook account and information with your site. Users can connect and find their friends who also use your site and they can share information and actions on your site with their friends on Facebook.

It is becoming more and more popular to promote your business, products and services using social networking sites online. However, before you jump on the bandwagon, you must look at your objectives and your target market to determine if it is right for you and your business.

There are many, many different kinds of social networking sites with many different purposes. Some are dedicated to business, others are only photo sharing sites, some are to help employers find the right employee while some are to help individuals find their right mate. Over the next few weeks we will take a deeper look at some of these sites and find out what their purpose is and if they really can help you grow your business.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Internet Marketing and e-Business expert, Susan Sweeney, CA, CSP, HoF is the author of 8 Internet marketing books including the best-selling book 101 Ways to Promote Your Web Site. To learn more about Susan and what she can do for your business, visit http://www.susansweeney.com

Here’s a short list of sites to explore and their intended focus:

• MySpace – Offers an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music and videos for teenagers and adults internationally.
• YouTube – Allows people to easily upload and share video clips on their website and across the Internet through other websites, mobile devices, blogs, and email.
• Facebook – Users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people. People can also add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profile to notify friends about themselves.
• Twitter – A free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.
• Bebo – A social media network where friends share their lives and explore great entertainment.
• Ryze – This service is designed to link business professionals, particularly new entrepreneurs.
• LinkedIn – A business-oriented social networking site mainly used for professional networking.
• Ecademy – A social network to connect business people.
• BlackPlanet – An online niche social-networking site targeted especially for the African American community.
• Broadcaster.com – Allows users to create personal profiles, post pictures, upload videos, and chat with the site’s other users through a live webcam chat feature.
• Care2 – A social network for activists around the world.
• Flickr – An image and video hosting website, web services suite, and online community platform. It was one of the earliest Web 2.0 applications.
• LiveJournal – A virtual community where users can keep a blog, journal or diary. LiveJournal’s differences from other blogging sites include its WELL-like features of a self-contained community and some social networking features.

How can you use these services to promote your business?
You’ll want to preview these sites for yourself and get a feel for their unique angles and features. Then develop an overall strategy outlining your objectives along with specific tactics for each service you want to employ. I’ve found several articles that do a good job of detailing the specifics and encourage you to read these over:

• My blog post concerning Twitter written by Susan Sweeney
• Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn by Guy Kawasaki
• Leveraging Social Networking Sites to Generate Business by Michael Jones
• Employing Social Media: 6 Ways to Put Social Media to Work for Your ECommerce Site Now by Jennifer Meacham
• Guide to Facebook Basics for Your Business by Brian Brown

Incidentally, I am listed on LinkedIn and Facebook and welcome all my clients to join and connect with me as we grow our businesses together. There is strength in numbers!

There is quite a bit of talk on the Internet these days about this new social media service called Twitter. So what is it? Well, basically, it’s a way to keep up to date with what people in your social circle are doing. This is what Twitter has to say about itself:

“Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co-workers to communicate
and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers
to one simple question: What are you doing?”

Just like other social media services such as Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn , you have to sign up for an account. From there you can post your messages, or as the Twitter family like to call it, your “tweets”. You can choose to “follow” other people’s posts which mean you will receive their posts once they update, or other people can choose to “follow” your posts. You can even choose to keep your posts private so that only your friends can read them; you can even turn post updates on for some people and off for others.

Twitter updates are small, the limit is 140 characters, but users can send updates via SMS, instant messaging, email and the web, or by any one of the multitude of Twitter applications that are now available.

All in all it’s a great way to keep in touch no matter where you are and the best part is… it’s free!

So, can Twitter help your business?

Well, only you can decide that for sure, but let’s take a second to recap: Twitter is a communication tool, it’s instant, it can be updated and read no matter where you are (as long as you have an Internet connection or a mobile phone) and it’s free. Sounds like Twitter has the potential to be a pretty useful Internet marketing application.

Here are a few examples of how Twitter can be used in business:

• Personal Branding  Build your personal brand and establish yourself as a social personality that is connected and approachable.
• Get Feedback  Blast out a message asking for advice on how a Web site looks or send out your most burning questions and you’ll receive replies from other users.
• Direct traffic  When you send out messages, include your Web site information. Twitter offers a great opportunity to exponentially increase your exposure with viral marketing.
• Business Management  Use Twitter as your company’s intranet. Use it to connect employees to one another especially if they are working on a big project together. Be sure to set updates to private for security reasons.
• Notify Your Customers  Use Twitter to notify customers when new products are available.
• Event Updates  Inform event participants of the latest event happenings and/or changes as they happen. Or use it to provide real-time commentary on events coverage.
• Find Prospects  Twitter can be used as a means to find potential customers or clients online. Do a search for keywords related to your product on Tweetscan, Terraminds or Summize and then follow users. Tweet about topics parallel to your product and close prospects away from public channels by using direct messages or offline communications. Discretion and skill is needed in this area.
• Set up Meetings  Organize last minute meetings with Twitter. You can do this on your way back from lunch, at the doctor’s office or after a client meeting.
• Affiliate Management  Use Twitter to increase communication between you and your network of affiliates.

These are just a few examples of how Twitter can be used as a business application. It’s quick, it’s easy and it’s free. But only you can decide if it is right for your business.

Credit to Author
Internet Marketing and e-Business expert, Susan Sweeney, CA, CSP, HoF is the author of 8 Internet marketing books including the best-selling book 101 Ways to Promote Your Web Site. To learn more about Susan and what she can do for your business, visit http://www.susansweeney.com

(1) Monroe’s Motivated Sequence
This method of persuasion relies on a sequence of actions by you (the seller) to trigger a response in the customer and ultimately motivate them to act on your final call to action.

• Grab Their Attention – All you need is a simple attention grabber. Let’s say you work a cosmetics counter. Your customers are likely motivated by their need for beauty. Your displays could invite them to come closer for a look with big, glossy blow-ups of their favorite celebrity using the product.
• Trigger A Need -A stimulated need leads to the person seeking a solution.  What you’re looking for is their particular aesthetic appreciations. Let’s say your display worked and she’s looking at the cream eye shadows. Play to this by telling her you have the latest greatest must-have cream eye shadows to stroke that need. It’s something she doesn’t have and you’ve got her interested.
  • See CIN Needs Model (changingminds.org)
• Create a Path to Satisfaction -Propose a way to satisfaction by meeting the need you have just stimulated. Show her that brand new cream eye shadow. Pull it out of the box. Unscrew the cap and let her get a good look at it.
• Help to Visualize the Solution -Move the customer to see that the path you have just indicated will be the right answer for them to meet the need. Put the opened product into her hands. Suggest she rub a bit on her skin to test the color or put some on her eyes to see the effect. You want her to see it for herself.
• Call to Action -Prompt the customer to implement the solution you both now know to be the right thing to do. Compliment her on the way it looks. Perhaps even suggest she try a shade a wee bit different just to make sure it’s the perfect color. Make her aware of the price of the product. Ask her if you can wrap it up for it.

(2) Foot in the Door
Ask for something small. When they give it you, ask for something bigger.

Here’s an example: Let’s say you run an auto parts store. You could find a product that is popular, low cost, and needs to be replaced often and then offer it at a deep discount everyday. The lower the better. All you need to do is break even. Advertise heavily that you have this item for sale everyday at this incredibly low price. Every time a customer makes a repeat visit for this item you build trust with them which gives you future opportunities to sell them more profitable products.

• Further reading: Bonding Principles (changingminds.org)

(3) Repetition Principle
Repeat something often enough and you will persuade them. Everyone has some advertising jingle locked away in their head that gets triggered every time they see the product. Brylcreem is my personal demon. I once did a project that required I edit a piece of video of an old Brylcreem commercial. I must have watched it back-to-back a couple dozen times. Now, years later, I still hear that catchy tune whenever I see a guy with his hair slicked back. Brylcreem…a little dab will do yah.

Through repetition of that TV commercial, I became familiar with the Brylcreem brand and my awareness of it is locked away in long-term memory. In fact, I honestly don’t know of any other brand of hair tonic, but I know I’ve seen them on the store shelves. If I was ever in need of hair tonic, I would certainly go looking for some Brylcreem since I feel I have some connection or understanding of the product. What first seemed strange, became clear and understandable with repeated exposure. If the problem is that my hair is a mess and unmanageable, what I need to solve the problem is Brylcreem. Not hair tonic. Not some other brand. It has to be Brylcreem. I’m convinced that I’ve found the solution to fulfill my need because I can see the guy on the commercial with his messy hair. He can’t get one girl to look his way. But after using Brylcreem, he’s a chick magnet.

The point is, use repetition to create familiarity and generate liking. Use it to help the customer remember the things you want them to remember. And associate the repetition with a trigger that can re-stimulate good feelings. Brylcreem…a little dab will do yah!

Further reading from ChangingMinds.org:

• Using repetition
• Theories About Memory
• Theories about Meaning

What is Pay-Per-Click (PPC) and how does it work?
Let’s see the Wikipedia entry for this one:

Pay per click (PPC) is an Internet advertising model used on search engines, advertising networks, and content websites, such as blogs, where advertisers only pay when a user actually clicks on an advertisement to visit the advertisers’ website. With search engines, advertisers typically bid on keyword phrases relevant to their target market. When a user types a keyword query matching an advertiser’s keyword list, or views a webpage with relevant content, the advertisements may be displayed. Such advertisements are called sponsored links or sponsored ads, and appear adjacent to or above the “natural” or organic results on search engine results pages, or anywhere a webmaster or blogger chooses on a content page. Content websites commonly charge a fixed price for a click rather than use a bidding mechanism.

Although many PPC providers exist, Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and Microsoft adCenter are the largest network operators as of 2007. Minimum prices per click, often referred to as costs per click (CPC), vary depending on the search engine and the level of competition for a particular phrase or keyword list with some CPCs as low as US$0.01. Very popular search terms can cost much more on popular search engines. The PPC advertising model is open to abuse through click fraud, although Google and other search engines have implemented automated systems to guard against abusive clicks by competitors or corrupt webmasters.

Now I know what it is. How do I get started?
Running an effective and affordable PPC campaign requires research and diligence. You may want the help of a PPC Consultant and there are many in the Asheville area. Email me for references. But whether you decide to use a hired gun or try this yourself, you’ll want to be able to:

• Define your business goals and objectives for the PPC campaign
• Perform an in-depth analysis of your website and goals to generate a keyword list that your customers are most likely to use when searching for your products
• Prioritize the keyword list based on cost and popularity
• Write successful ad copy to lower overall costs
• Generate and analyze reports on at least a monthly basis and make appropriate adjustments to your campaign

Holiday PPC Campaign Schedule

• August/September – Establish your goals and define success (ROI – Return on Investment). Plan out your PPC strategy from August to January including a reporting schedule and sets of prioritized keyword lists. Launch your campaign and refine your keywords through testing. The early birds start holiday shopping during these months even if all they’re doing is price comparison. Watch your site analytics to see which products are most heavily visited.
• October - The season is in full swing and it’s time to play with your bids and determine what you’ll need to spend to make the return that equals success. Make sure that your website is up-to-date with all of your holiday items and don’t forget to add related products to your product listings.
• November - Track and analyze your results so far and make any needed adjustments to your campaign. Traffic will be heavy by Thanksgiving. With more traffic, there will be more clicks costing you money but giving you leads. So keep an eye on your budget.
• December - Pay close attention to your budget and continue to refine. You may need to increase your budget in the first two weeks to maximize your results. These first two weeks are the final guaranteed days for shipments to arrive before Christmas, so orders will be heavy.
• January - Continue to market during the after holiday shopping period as many of your customers may have received gift certificates. Consider putting some items on sale to offer good deals for those who have post-holiday dollars to spend.

A Final Word
If you decide to enter into a PPC campaign, be sure you are committed to it for a reasonable amount of time – at least 6 months. Whether you hire a professional or do-it-yourself, you’ll make mistakes, need to make adjustments, and analyze reports. So be patient. The beauty of a PPC professional is that they can take you from 0-60 faster and more cost-effectively than you can accomplish on your own with no prior experience. However, if paying a professional isn’t in the budget and you can devote some time, then be prepared to learn, research, and attend to your PPC campaign to give it the best chance possible of increasing your qualified traffic and online revenues. It’s September now and it’s not too late to get started on having a record breaking Holiday season.

With this in mind, I’d like to offer you what I consider to be the absolute minimum you should be doing with your website. And I mean, doing repeatedly. Not just once so you can say, “Oh, I’ve tried that and it didn’t work”, but really commit yourself to this effort for at least six months. I guarantee that you will see web traffic improve, online and offline sales increase, and you’ll end up with more money in your pocket. And the best news is that ALL of these essentials require very little cash and very little computer tech ability. What makes them work is the repeated application. Rinse and repeat.

Publish an Electronic Newsletter
I’ve been saying this for years. Some of you have been listening. For those of you already doing this, just make sure you do it at least 4 times a year. For the rest of you who don’t know where to start, may I suggest:

• Sign-up for some newsletters if you haven’t already and read them. Study them. How is the content motivating you to action? How is the content organized? Are there links for further information that take you to the parent website? Was there too much content? Too little? Was it relevant and interesting? Do they send me their newsletter too often?
• Here’s a few newsletters and blogs I receive and enjoy on a regular basis to help get you started:
  • ECommerceNotes
  • Seth Godin’s Newsletter & Blog
  • Nintendo Newsletter
  • Design Observer

• Now that you’ve read and analyzed some newsletters, you should have some good ideas about what works and what doesn’t. Try putting together a list of headlines for your newsletter. How many? I suggest from 3 to 6 maximum. But that could mean 3 headlines along with 3 permanent sections like Current Events, Product Spotlight, or About Insert Author Name Here. It’s up to you and you may find you like different formats given certain situations. You will hone your skills with these decisions as you practice. For now, just write down 6 headlines.
• Next, start writing your articles as posts to your blog. Don’t have a blog? You can set one up for free with WordPress or Blogger. There are many other services, but these are good and solid and easy to use. By writing each section of your newsletter as a blog post first, we’re accomplishing two things: (1) You get to write this thing in pieces so you don’t get overwhelmed with the time you’re spending on it, and (2) Your blog posts will be indexed and searchable by the search engines and become permanent content rather than a bit of email that’s easily dumped in the trash.
• Now that you’ve got all your blog posts done, it’s time to piece the newsletter together. There’s lots of methods for doing this and many programs at your disposal, but I’m going to focus on the easiest, fastest, and cheapest way to do this. Get an account with Vertical Response if you have a small mailing list and want to pay per email sent. If you have several thousand customer email sign-ups, then consider something more robust with a monthly fee such as Topica or Constant Contact. All of these services offer a wide variety of layout templates, easy methods for inserting links and pictures, tools to track the effectiveness of your campaign, and you can even import your mailing list from another program.
• Your newsletter will start with your logo and/or company name. You can follow that with “In This Issue” or simply compose an opening paragraph describing what’s in the body of the newsletter or your reason for writing at this time (EX: Fall is in the Air, or Holidays Are Coming).
• Next include a headline with the first few sentences or synopsis of your corresponding blog post followed by a link to the post that says “Read the Full Article”. Consider including a thumbnail picture to visually describe the concept of the article. Repeat this process until you have all your headlines and synopses listed with links to the blog posts.
• End your newsletter with an optional “About The Author” short paragraph and picture or “Links to Further Resources” topic with links to pertinent websites. Then wrap it all up with your full contact information including name, address, phone, toll-free number, web address, and email.
• The newsletter services listed above offer the “Forward to a Friend” option, unsubscribe link, and campaign tracking. Take ALL of these options.
• Save, Send a Test Email to yourself for careful proofing, Edit as needed, and Send.
• Repeat this process in 3 months.
• NOTES
  • Remember to install a link on your website to your newsletter subscription form. This way you are not having to add/edit/delete your users. Save yourself the time and let them handle this end of the deal.
  • Make sure there is a link on your website to your blog.
  • Double check that Google/MSN/Yahoo have indexed your blog posts. If they haven’t, submit your blog URL once, wait for 30 days, and recheck to see if it’s been included. Repeat if necessary in 30 day intervals. Once you find one page from your blog indexed, the spider bots from these search engines will find the rest. So don’t spam the engines with page submissions!
  • Ensure that your blog has links back to your website. This can be a simple link to your homepage, links to critical sections, or links within posts to specific pages on your website. Remember that your website changes, so carefully consider linking to a product that you may no longer stock next year, or a special event page that will be gone in a few months.

Track Your Website with a Google Analytics Account

• What is Google Analytics? In the words of Google itself, “The new Google Analytics makes it easy to improve your results online. Write better ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives, and create higher-converting websites. Google Analytics is free to all advertisers, publishers, and site owners.”
• How Does it Work? After you sign-up for an account, you install a bit of code to all the pages on your website that you want to track. Upon installation verification, Google begins to compile data (from their viewpoint) about how your visitors are finding your site, what pages they’re viewing, what links they click, where they are in the world, and if you also have Google Adwords, track conversion rates. But there’s much more too. The data can be overwhelming, so they’ve got an online help section and articles to help you make sense of it all. The graphical nature of the Google Analytics tool makes it easy to understand the data quickly.
• OK. I’ve got Google Analytics(GA) tracking my site. Now what? The fun part begins. Login to your account and start viewing the reports. What can you do with this data and how can it inform your business decisions? Consider this example: You can use the Geo Overlays to see where your site users are located. GA offers you the ability to display this information as deeply as you see fit – country, state,  or city level. What this means is that you now have specific information that will allow you to geographically target your online and offline advertising. Want to know more? Read this article by Eric Enge titled “10 Cool Things You Can Do With the New Google Analytics“.

Coordinate Your Printed Materials With Your Website
Whether you sell products, have special events, consult with other businesses, or participate in craft shows, you have printed materials that represent you and your business. These can be print ads in magazines and local papers, flyers, brochures, postcards, and business cards. Trying to figure out which methods give you the most bang for your buck can be difficult, but if you have a website and a Google Analytics account, you’ll find that you can remove much of the guess work.

You already know that you should put your website address (URL) and email address on your business card. That’s a no brainer. But consider having a double-sided business card designed that carries on the back a unique promo code for a “10% Discount” or “1-Hour Free Consultation”. My client, Becca Lane (owner of Nature Baby Online) specializes in organic baby wearing items. She carries her double-sided business cards around with her wherever she goes and hands them out to pregnant mothers-to-be. When the coupon code is used on her retail website, she knows exactly where the sale originated.

Rather than offer a unique promo code, you could try creating a unique web address to a specific page on your website “for further information”. This special page would not be linked to from anywhere else EXCEPT from the printed materials. Then you can use GA to track the page and see how many visitors you received. I’m doing this with the Fiber Fabric Bead Trail brochure that is a coordinated effort by a dozen local retailers who sell related products. The web address listed on the brochure promises a printable map of the FFB Trail and coupons to the participating vendors. This way we can track not only how many people are coming to the website from the brochure, but also how many are making purchases and using the printable coupons.

These methods also work great with print ads in newspapers and magazines. Try using unique promo codes for each ad so you can track them individually. If your ad runs in a local paper, be sure to make it a cut-and-carry coupon for in-store redemption.

CONCLUSION
These three activities described above are what I consider to be the essential efforts every online business person must perform regularly to stay competitive.

• Publish a Newsletter at least four times a year
• Analyze your Google Analytics reports at least once a month and respond to that data appropriately
• Don’t let one piece of printed material go out the door that doesn’t tie back to your website in some measurable and quantifiable way

To my current clients who read this article, please note: I’m talking to you! I want to see each and every one of you successful in your business ventures. So please don’t hesitate to shoot me an email or give me a call if you need help with:

• Setting up your blog and newsletter
• URL Submission and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Getting Google Analytics installed to your site
• Designing and printing business cards, brochures, and postcards
• Creating special landing pages on your website to help you track your campaigns

The ability to persuade people and motivate action is essential to anyone trying to market their business. And in these difficult financial times (September 2008), honing our skills in this area is simply prudent.

Let’s look at an example that got me launched into several other websites looking for more. This is a logo used by Philip Morris. Smokers can tell you better than anyone what line of business PM is in. Notice the catch phrase Veni Vidi Vici. More specifically it is a motto, a short phrase intended to motivate. But how does it persuade? Here’s my short list of what I can identify:

1. The meaning of the phrase itself is I came, I saw, I conquered. It simultaneously confers the totality of victory and serves as a reminder of power or prowess. Who doesn’t like to feel powerful and think of themselves as confident? The phrase suggests a way of behaving appealing to what’s called an instrumental value. These behaviors ensure we get what we want and what we want can be defined as our End-of-State values. These are things such as happiness, security, or salvation. So the message I’m getting from this logo is If you smoke our cigarettes, you’ll be the kind of person who gets what they want.
2. The use of repetition is a common method of persuasion. We see a combination of three words with the same initial first letter. This is termed Alliteration. The specific use of three words only to form the alliteration is called The Triple  with these words naming two actions and a solution. It’s the combination here that is so influential.
3. The persuasion is enforced by the way in which the words rhyme forming a rhythmic pattern. One can admire the balance in the way all words are four letters in length, beginning with a “V” followed by a vowel, a consonant, and an ending vowel. There’s a feeling of great stability in such balanced, tonal patterns.
4. The motto in all its beauty is given visual form by the metallic gold scroll and horses of fine quality all topped with a crown. Like a golden regal sundae. Tasty. We even get a red cherry in the center drawing focus to the strong, and stable capitals of the company name. Looking to heraldry to decipher the meaning of the horses, one sees that it is possibly a combination of the Lion (fierce courage) due to their upright stance and the Horse (readiness for duty). This seems an obvious reinforcement of instrumental and end-of-state values discussed in Point 1.
5. The horse to the left wears a crown, a small repetition of the large, top and center crown. The crown may be not only a symbol for royalty, but more importantly, authority. PM is topped by a crown, therefore in a position of authority. If the consumer were to identify with the crowned horse, it could create a feeling that you’ve been given permission by a higher authority.
6. The colors gold and red certainly have a variety of meanings given their context. I propose that in this logo, the gold refers to generosity, wealth, and when coupled with permission (see Point 5), self-indulgence. Continuing with a look to heraldry, red was used to convey the warrior or martyr which I find ironic considering the PM product. Red was also used to define magnanimity, the virtue of being great of mind and heart. Now the message appears to be “We know you’re smart and you’re the type who gets what they want. And we’re just the guys to give it to you. Go ahead. We give you permission.”

Wow. Maybe I’m reading too much into this….or maybe not.

What I’ve learned from this PM logo and in looking to others such as IBM’s with its “Think” motto, or HP’s with “Invent”, is that the primary function of a company logo is not to describe or encapsulate a company’s philosophy or practice into some neat and tidy slogan with a graphic. The main priority of a successful logo is to produce within the consumer or target audience the motivation to use their product or services. These logos persuade using a multitude of techniques designed to work in a psychological manner and as a call to action on the mark. Do you feel manipulated yet?